Alexander Beliavsky
Number of games in database: 2,331
Years covered: 1967 to 2016
Last FIDE rating: 2605(2631 rapid)
Highest rating achieved in database: 2710Overall record: +781 -443 =1041 (57.5%)*
* Overall winning percentage = (wins+draws/2) / total games
Based on games in the database; may be incomplete.
66 exhibition games, odds games, etc. are excluded from this statistic.

Alexander Genrikhovich Beliavsky was born in Lviv, in what is now Ukraine. He currently lives in Slovenia and he plays for the Olympic team there. He is noted for his uncompromising style of play and for his classical opening repertoire, including openings such as the Queen's Gambit, Ruy Lopez and French Defence.

Beliavsky won the World Junior Championship in 1973, thereby automatically earning the title of International Master. He also won the USSR Championship in 1974 with Mikhail Tal(1), 1980 (2), 1987 with Valery Salov, and 1990 with Leonid Yudasin, Evgeny Bareev and Alexey Vyzmanavin(3). Beliavsky placed second to Garry Kasparov at the 1982 Moscow Interzonal, both players qualifying for the Candidates matches, and lost to Kasparov in the first round of the cycle in 1983 by 3-6 (+1 -4 =4). He also came second in the Tunis Interzonal in 1985, this time just behind Artur Yusupov, but placed seventh in the Montpelier Candidates Tournament of 1985 (outside the top four needed to qualify for the Candidates Matches). (4)

waustad: He's the only one left in the top 100 (he's now tied for 100-101) who was born before I started school and one of the few left who was born before I started college. With baseball the last MLB player who was older than I was turned out to be Charlie Hough. In chess the last top 100 player older than me was Victor Korchnoi, but he was that for a lot of people. Time passes. Happy 60th!

Zugzwangovich: I always wondered why Yasser Seirawan frequently called him "Big Al" in the pages of Inside Chess. In a photo of the USSR team at the 1982 Olympiad he looked rather slender and not very tall; only the diminutive Tal was shorter.

The Kings Domain: Appaz: Thanks for sharing that nice interview. It's nice to see Beliavsky still going strong. I remember fondly playing and studying his games back when he was one of the top Chess masters and it brings back good memories. It's nice to know he kicked the asses of younger players. Personality has a lot to do with Chess as much as skill.

cunctatorg: Grandmaster Alexander Beliavsky was the King, the dominating figure, at the Chess Olympiad in Thessaloniki 1984; his performance there was not only outstanding but dominating; playing as the top board of the (back then) USSR Olympic Chess Team, he crushed all opposition in formidable and striking ways!!...

His performance defines for me the meaning of the "title": Super Grandmaster...

waustad: His draw in the first round of the Reykjavik Open 2016 against Bardur Orn Birkisson ight have been be the biggest upset of the round if it weren't for Nils Grandelius losing to Einar Valdimarsson. Swiss gambits have been known to work before, so perhaps these players will be in the mix at the end.

diagonal: A sit down with Alexander Beliavsky (chess.com series): An interview with the chess legend at the Univé Chess tournament (Open) in 2014. Beliavsky speaks about winning the Soviet Championship four times, his many successes in The Netherlands, his coaching work with MVL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICJ...

At the moment, the mighty dinosaur, his own word, compare the link from <Appaz>, is playing in the international invitation Vidmar Memorial, XX jubilee edition; Beliavsky is record five-time winner.

diagonal: Notable international tournament wins: Beliavsky won twice at Tilburg, in 1981 (clear first ahead of Petrosian, Timman, Portisch, Ljubojevic, Spassky, Kasparov with 50%, Andersson, Larsen, Sosonko, Hübner, Miles), and enjoyed again a triumph at Tilburg, in 1986 (clear first ahead of Ljubojevic, Karpov, Miles, Timman, Portisch, Hübner, Korchnoi). Alexander Beliavsky was sole winner at the two strong and last OHRA Amsterdam tournaments in 1989 and 1990, and was joint winner with Viktor Korchnoi at the traditional Wijk aan Zee in 1984.

Alexander Beliavsky won also among others the invitational tournaments at Kiev International in 1978, Alicante in 1978 (making it clean 100%, a rare perfect score of 13/13, full five points above shared second Mark Diesen and Evgenij Ermenkov), Bogota in 1979 (two points ahead of James Tarjan), Bucharest in 1980, at Baden (by Vienna) in 1980 (with Spassky), at Bosna, Sarajevo in 1982 (scoring stunning 12.5 out of 15 points in a pretty strong field), the Chigorin Memorial in Sochi in 1986 (equal with Svetozar Gligorić and Rafael Vaganian, edging out Tal, Smyslov, Geller, Razuvaev, a.o.), Akker Brygge (Norway) in 1989 (Mini tournament, clear first ahead of Tal, Smylsov, and Simen Agdestein), Munich (Mephisto-SKA) 1990, Belgrade (Investbanka) 1993 (featuring Kramnik, Khalifman and Bareev; Beliavsky is clear first, full 1.5 points ahead of top-seeded Kramnik), León 1994, Cacak 1996, the Rubinstein Memorial in Polanica-Zdrój in 1996, a record five times the Vidmar Memorial: in 1999, 2001, 2003 (joint with Emil Sutovsky) and 2005 held at Portorož, as well as in 2011 at Ljubljana (national Slovenian Championship), and the Gotth' Art Cup at Szentgotthard (Hungary) in 2010, ahead of 2nd/3rd Portisch & Rapport. Beliavsky’s first victory abroad was the 5th Parcetic Memorial at Sombor (Yugoslavia, now Serbia) in 1972 (as clear first ahead of Csom, Timman, Matulovic, Velimirovic, Adorjan, Knaak, Jansa and others).

Alexander Beliavsky was co-winner with Korchnoi (first on tie-break scoring) in the IBM-Vienna Invitational Open in 1986, including four top-ten players, ahead of luminaries as Karpov, Spassky, Nunn, and young Zsuzsa Polgar. He won several other forceful Open Festivals (swiss system), eg. as clear first the famous Lloyds Bank Open, London in 1985, as clear first the 17th Bled Open in 1996, or the traditional Politiken-Cup at Chess Festival Copenhagen in 2002, together with Sergej Tiviakov (first on tie-break scoring) and Ruben Felgaer.

Beliavsky was also awarded the winner’s trophy on better tie-break over (the first Uruguayan grandmaster) Andres Rodriguez Vila at the 1st Torneo Libertador Simón Bolívar (Venezuala) in 2012 with 651 participants, and most recently he took clear first place at the 20th HIT Open Nova Gorica (Slovenia) in 2015.

Runner-up: Beliavsky was clear second to Garry Kasparov at Reykjavik (GMA World Cup Series) in 1988, clear second to Jan Timman at Linares in 1988, clear second to Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in the Marx György Memorial at Paks (Hungary) in 2008, shared second at Las Palmas in 1974, shared second at Tilburg in 1984, shared second at Wijk aan Zee in 1985 (surprisingly Beliavsky could participate at this traditional tournament just twice), shared second at Reggio Emilia in 1987/88, among other events.

His cg. bio box still did not mention these triumphs until now, that's why a survey in this shape, cp. my earlier posting.

diagonal: Third and last part of the Trilogy:
Perfect score in 1978 at the (5th) Torneo Internacional Ciudad de Alicante, Memorial Gimeno Brotons. Alexander Beliavsky at a clean 13/13, finishing five points !!!!! ahead of joint Diesen and Ermenkov: http://www.ajedrecito3.galeon.com/i..., with an original little pic of the young winner.

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